Batteries are used for a wide variety of industrial applications. For example, buildings containing lead acid batteries are placed throughout our countryside and within our urban areas for electrical energy storage, and these batteries are used to keep telephones, cable TV, and Internet data centers functional when power is otherwise lost. The most widely used batteries for industrial applications are the classic lead acid battery, which are available as flooded cell or valve regulated. Each of these batteries uses the same basic chemistry; plates of lead and lead oxide are contained in an electrolyte of sulfuric acid. Battery terminals are connected to these plates immersed in electrolyte.
Flowing electrolyte batteries have two electrolytes, anolyte and catholyte, that are circulating and separated by a membrane. In the case of zinc bromine flowing electrolyte battery, zinc is plated out during charge and consequently frees up bromide ions that diffuse across the membrane. In this case, the anolyte becomes increasingly zinc depleted and the catholyte becomes increasingly bromine rich. An electrical potential develops across this membrane due to the presence of metal on one side of the membrane, such as zinc, and a catholyte on the other side of the membrane. The catholyte is rich in cation concentration such as bromide.
In the event of a fire within a facility containing industrial batteries, or in the event of a battery malfunction, the batteries may become unsafe and the energy that they store may become readily available to the outside world. Fire departments proceed with great caution into fires in such facilities because of the danger of electrical shock or explosion that may occur in the event of a battery failure. Previously, there has not been a way to turn batteries off chemically.
Also, in the event of non-use, a battery can self discharge due to reactant available in the reaction cell. The reactant causes a slow diffusion through the membrane to slowly discharge the battery. Previously, there has not been a way to neutralize batteries chemically to stop this self discharge in times of non-use.